


fallen flowers

by crazylilbbh



Series: tiny sparks [8]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Chanyeol's Birthday Week 2020, Detective Chanyeol, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kidnapping, M/M, mystery au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:42:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28092606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crazylilbbh/pseuds/crazylilbbh
Summary: Chanyeol, I'll be waiting for you.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Park Chanyeol
Series: tiny sparks [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1839997
Comments: 20
Kudos: 28
Collections: Challenge #11 — The Suspect... is You!





	fallen flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy 😊

_Chanyeol, I’ll be waiting for you._

Detective Park Chanyeol could feel the air in his lungs locking up, refusing to spread, as several police officers barged in the cabin. He vaguely heard the orders stated earlier; all he could think of was that he was close, so _damn close_ to finally finding him.

_Byun Baekhyun._

How many years has it been? How many years had he been waiting for him in this deep, dark place? 

“Get your filthy hands off me, you dirty fu—”

Chanyeol turned to his former English teacher of their middle school, pinned to the ground by Officers Sehun and Kai. Now a middle-aged man whose white hairs had begun to show, all Chanyeol felt was disgust and rage. 

It had been over a decade since the last child went missing and that’s what Detective Park Chanyeol had returned to his town for. Three boys were taken over the last three months—the third one right after the second’s body was found. Now, it was a race against time to find him before it was too late.

Same M.O. Same characteristics. Too similar to a case Chanyeol knew fifteen years ago.

The unsub targeted boys, ages nine to eleven, from schools around the district and he kept them for a period of time. Two things remained constant from the victims despite the years that lapsed in between: 1) they were quiet boys from troubled homes who were unlikely to be reported missing and 2) they were taken when the seasons changed from autumn to winter.

The first ever victim’s body was discovered a week after he went missing, just after the first snowfall of the year. The boy was laid upon the ground in nothing but pristine white clothes as if he was sleeping, hands clasped tightly on his chest, holding a single deep purple hyacinth. Three days later, the next victim disappeared then later discovered in the same manner as the first. 

The pattern stopped with Byun Baekhyun. 

Baekhyun was not like the others. He was loud, joyful, and new. Having recently moved to live with his foster family, Baekhyun was bursting with energy from the city you wouldn’t normally find in a small town. Loved by them despite being adopted, he was the complete opposite of Chanyeol, the quiet boy who had lived in the same place all his life with no one, not even his parents, to care for him. For Chanyeol, Baekhyun was like the first bloom of spring—a ray of light.

And when Baekhyun went missing, everything stopped for Chanyeol as well. At age ten, everyone tried to hide the truth—told him Baekhyun had run away. To his other classmates, they might’ve believed such a thing. Baekhyun had always talked about leaving the town one day, seeing the world.

But Chanyeol never believed them for a second because the day Baekhyun went missing was the day Baekhyun promised to meet him at the park.

But no body was discovered and no other kids went missing after that and for the next fifteen years, the trail went cold.

Until the kidnappings and the bodies started again this year.

It was what lured Chanyeol from his office in Seoul. The cases this year were too similar to the ones back when he was ten. Whether it was the same killer back or a copycat, Chanyeol vowed to return back to his hometown to catch him. It was what got him into this field the first time: to make sure something like that would never happen again. No one had ever really gotten any closure after losing Baekhyun, especially him.

Now, they had finally caught the damn bastard. But the fight wasn’t over yet. They had to find the kidnapped boy.

Chanyeol could vaguely hear his captain, Kim Junmyeon, bark out orders to the other officers on site to scan the vicinity of the cabin hidden deep in the woods but all of Chanyeol’s focus was on the cunning man pinned to the ground by his fellow officers.

“Where is he?” Chanyeol demanded. Do Kyungsoo, his partner, looked up in worry, holding out a hand to stop him but Chanyeol pushed it away. An urgency had nipped at him ever since that damn letter arrived, that stupid letter that'd been mailed and posted throughout Korea before it got back here.

It was something simple yet it held evidence needed for the investigation: a single hyacinth stem and an address. But it was vital evidence because it was signed by no one other than Byun Baekhyun.

“Those stupid kids weren’t like him at all!” Kang Hyungmo started yelling. For a moment, the man had gone completely deranged. Whatever calculating killer he was over the past two months they tried to catch him was lost for a second. "Even in death, he tortures me! Those boys were imperfect. Too flawed to live!"

Chanyeol grabbed the collar of his shirt and hurled him up, completely in his face. "Where is the boy?" His voice dropped to a menacing whisper. "Where is Byun Baekhyun?"

That's when Hyungmo's eyes finally landed on him and he went completely still. A look bloomed in their depths as he mused, whispering the next words so softly, "Ah, Park Chanyeol. I remember now."

Chanyeol felt the back of his hair rise.

"Come a little closer. I'll tell you something good."

A voice interrupted them. "Captain Kim!" It was Detective Zhang. "We found him! We found the boy! But no sign of anyone else!"

Chanyeol pushed his former English teacher back into the hands of Officers Sehun and Kai.

Kyungsoo brushed up beside him, concern written in his eyes. "What did he say?"

Chanyeol tried to control the shudder, turning around. "Nothing."

But he could still see the manic smile that curled up softly like a lover’s caress on his middle school teacher’s face that whispered words that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

_I thought he was you._

**Author's Note:**

> [edit post-reveals]
> 
> And in case you all have been wondering what happened to Baekhyun, he was alive all this time. For fifteen years, he was held captive by the kidnapper because he was different from all the others. For fifteen years, Baekhyun being erased from the world* was what stopped the killings.
> 
> But also, his death was triggered them again. I won't go into detail what happened but maybe he tried to escape prematurely (when he was able to send that letter that got posted around Korea) or maybe he said something wrong that finally triggered the killer. Either way, Chanyeol just barely missed him. In the end, just like when Chanyeol came to find the empty park where they promised to meet, he, too, came to find an empty town without Baekhyun.
> 
> -end-
> 
> *this here is an Erased reference 💙
> 
> (head down to the comments since there are parts I explained more ^^)


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